The Russo-Japanese War was the first military conflict in world history, in which submarines, a new type of warships, took part. Individual cases and attempts to use submarines for military purposes were recorded earlier, but only by the end of the 19th century, the development of science and technology made it possible to develop a full-fledged submarine. By 1900, no naval fleet in the world was yet armed with combat submarines. The main world powers began their construction almost simultaneously in 1900-1903.
It was at the beginning of the 20th century that submarines finally began to be viewed as a weapon that made it possible to defend themselves at sea even against a stronger enemy. The development of the submarine fleet in these years was partially facilitated by the fact that the naval commanders of the beginning of the last century viewed them as a kind of destroyers, believing that submarines in the future could replace the dying class of surface destroyers. The whole point was that the spread and development of modern rapid-fire artillery and searchlights, which were installed on warships, significantly reduced the possibility of using destroyers - their actions, for the most part, were now limited only to night hours. At the same time, submarines could operate both night and day. And although the new submarine warships were still far from perfect, their development promised countries enormous tactical advantages.
Almost from the very moment the destroyers attacked the Japanese fleet on January 27 (February 9), 1904 on the Russian squadron in Port Arthur, the Russian fortress was subjected to a fairly dense naval blockade. The ineffectiveness of the usual ways to overcome this siege forced the officers to look for non-standard solutions. The main role in this process, as always, was played by enthusiasts who proposed their own projects to the command of the fleet in various branches of military equipment: defensive booms, original mine trawls, and, finally, submarines.
M. P. Naletov (1869-1938), who became a well-known shipbuilder in the future, with the support of senior officers of the fleet, was engaged in the construction of a submarine - a minelayer according to his own design, work was in full swing in the workshops of the Nevsky plant located on the Tigrovy Tail peninsula, earlier destroyers were assembled here … Covertly, in a submerged position, the boat was supposed to enter the outer roadstead and lay minefields on the route of the Japanese squadron. The idea of building an underwater minelayer came to Naletov on the day of the death of the Russian battleship "Petropavlovsk", but he started building a submarine only in May 1904.
Having finished the construction of the boat's hull (it was a steel riveted cylinder with conical ends with a displacement of 25 tons), MP Naletov stopped work on this - there was no suitable engine in Port Arthur. Midshipman B. A. Vilkitsky, appointed commander of the unfinished boat (later a polar explorer, in 1913-14 he discovered and described the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago), having lost faith in the success of this project, soon gave up command of the boat. The further fate of this unusual project remains unknown: according to one source, M. P. The raids, just before the surrender of the fortress, ordered to disassemble the internal equipment of the boat, and the submarine's hull was blown up, according to other sources, the submarine died while in the dry dock of Port Arthur during another shelling by Japanese artillery. Later, Naletov was able to realize his idea of an underwater minelayer in the submarine "Crab", which became part of the Russian fleet in 1915 and managed to take an active part in the First World War in the Black Sea.
The second project of the submarine, which was proposed in Port Arthur, was associated with an attempt to modernize the old Dzhevetsky submarine, which was routinely in service with the sea fortresses of Russia since the end of the 19th century. The submarine was found in March 1904 at one of the warehouses of the fortress, and was found by Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Meller, who arrived at the fortress with Admiral Makarov to assist in the repair of damaged ships. This submarine was quite archaic even at that time. She had a pedal foot drive, the boat did not have a periscope, as well as mine weapons. However, the boat's hull, steering gear and semi-submerged stability were found to be satisfactory. Lieutenant Colonel Meller showed interest in the submarine and decided to undertake its restoration. At the same time, due to the strong employment in connection with the repair of the warships of the Russian squadron, Meller could not devote enough time to working with the boat. For this reason, work on the modernization of the submarine lasted until July 28 (August 10), 1904. Until Meller, after leaving the squadron to break through to Vladivostok, left the besieged fortress (on the Resolute destroyer through Chifu).
With the departure from Port Arthur Meller, the repair of the submarine stopped for two months, the work was resumed only in October 1904, when the junior mechanical engineer of the battleship Peresvet P. N. Tikhobaev decided to install a gasoline engine on the submarine. Rear Admiral Loshchinsky, to assist Tikhobaev in his work, appointed Warrant Officer BP Dudorov as commander of the submarine. At the request of the latter, the commander of the Russian squadron, RN Viren, gave an engine from his boat to re-equip the submarine. The hull of the submarine was divided into two pressurized compartments: the front control compartment, which housed the driver and the boat commander, and the rear compartment, the engine compartment. On the sides of the submarine, two lattice mine (torpedo) devices were mounted from the boats of the battleships "Peresvet" and "Pobeda", and a homemade periscope was also made. The boat was built in the Minnoe town on the Tiger tail: there were workshops here, moreover, this place was very rarely subjected to Japanese shelling.
At the beginning of November 1904, the first sea trials of the submarine took place in the Western Basin, which, however, ended unsuccessfully: the exhaust gases penetrated into the control compartment of the boat, for this reason Dudorov and the boat driver lost consciousness, and the submarine itself sank at a shallow depth. But thanks to the disposition of Tikhobaev, who accompanied the submarine on a boat (he himself, due to his fullness and his tall stature, could not fit in the boat), the submarine was saved along with the crew. To prevent the ingress of exhaust gases from a running engine into the control compartment, P. N. Tikhobaev invented the design of a special pump. At the same time, after the occupation of Mount Vysokaya on November 22 (December 5), the Japanese began daily shelling of the inner harbors of the Russian fortress. For this reason, it was decided to transfer the submarine to the outer roadstead, where, under the Golden Mountain, in the bay, which was formed by two Japanese fire ships stuck to the shore, work on the modernization of the boat was continued.
At the same time, living quarters and a workshop were equipped on one of the fire ships. When the sea was rough, the submarine on hoists was lifted aboard the fire-ship. All work was completed by the evening of December 19, 1904 (January 1, 1905). The next day, it was planned to conduct new tests of the submarine. But on the night of December 20 (January 2), Port Arthur was surrendered to the Japanese. On the morning of that day, by order of Rear Admiral Loshchinsky, Dudorov brought the submarine to a depth and flooded it in the outer roadstead of the fortress. The main tactical and technical characteristics of this Port Arthur boat remain unclear to this day. Since the submarine was equipped with a gasoline engine, it was, in fact, a semi-submarine (like the boat "Keta" of Lieutenant SA Yanovich), or just before the attack "dived" for several minutes under water.
However, without fulfilling their direct purpose, these Port Arthur submarines played a role in the psychological war against the Japanese. The press in Russia has several times published what today would be called "ducks" about the presence of Russian submarines in Port Arthur. At the same time, the presence of Russian submarines in the fortress was assumed by the Japanese. On the layout of the sunken Russian ships drawn up by the Japanese after the surrender of Port Arthur, the submarine or what the Japanese then took for it was designated. With the then primitivism of the design of boats, their very small displacement and a morbid imagination, a cistern or some parts of port facilities could be mistaken for the remains of a submarine's hull.
It should be noted that at the beginning of the 20th century, the overwhelming majority of the officers of the Russian navy considered it unnecessary to add submarines to its composition and spend money on their construction. Some officers expressed the opinion that the submarine would see nothing or very little under water, so it would have to gropingly attack enemy ships, releasing torpedoes on board blindly, having no chance of hitting the target. Other officers, who were accustomed to the comfort of the cabins of surface warships, said that submarines are not warships, but only devices, witty instruments for diving and prototypes of future submarine destroyers.
Only a few of the naval officers even then understood the prospects and the power of the new naval weapons. Thus, Wilhelm Karlovich Vitgeft highly appreciated the nascent underwater weapons. Back in 1889, being a captain of the 2nd rank, he went on a long business trip abroad in order to study mine weapons and the submarine fleet. In 1900, Rear Admiral Wittgeft already addressed the commander of the naval forces in the Pacific with a memorandum. In a note, he wrote: “The issue of submarines at this point in time has advanced so much forward, to the shortest solution, that it began to attract the attention of all the fleets of the world. Not yet providing a sufficiently satisfactory solution in combat terms, submarines, however, are already considered a weapon that is able to produce a strong moral impact on the enemy, since he is aware that such a weapon can be used against him. In this matter, the Russian fleet was ahead of other fleets of the world and, unfortunately, for various reasons, stopped after the completion of the first more or less successful experiments and experiments in this area."
As an experiment, the rear admiral asked to install torpedo tubes on old Dzhevetsky submarines of 1881, which have a pedal drive, and asked to send boats to the Far East. At the same time, he proposed to carry out the delivery on the steamer of the Voluntary Fleet with a mandatory visit to Japanese ports, so that the submarines were guaranteed to be noticed by the Japanese. As a result, the steamer "Dagmar" delivered the "package" to the fortress, and the calculation of the rear admiral justified itself. When the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima were blown up by mines near Port Arthur in April 1904, the Japanese believed that they were attacked by Russian submarines, while the entire Japanese squadron fired violently and for a long time into the water. The Japanese were aware of the presence of Russian submarines in Port Arthur. Rumors about them were published in the press. True to his idea of the moral significance of the new underwater weapon, Wilhelm Wittgeft ordered, when blowing up Japanese battleships on mines, to give a radiogram that the admiral thanks the submarines for a successful deed. The Japanese successfully intercepted this radio message and "took the information into consideration."
To a certain extent, the Japanese command had every reason to fear the actions of Russian submarines. Even before the beginning of the military conflict with the country of the rising sun, the command of the Russian fleet tried to create its own submarine forces in the fortress of Port Arthur. In addition to the already mentioned submarine Dzhevetskiy, the boat of the French designer T. Gube was probably delivered to the fortress, probably back in 1903, it was brought on board the battleship "Tsesarevich". The displacement of the boat was 10 tons, the crew was 3 people. She could maintain a speed of 5 knots for 6-7 hours, the armament of the boat was 2 torpedoes. In the very first days of the war, along with a special echelon, NN Kuteinikov, the head of the working detachment of the Baltic plant, was sent to the Far East. He was the builder of the submarine "Petr Koshka" and, most likely, this submarine was also moving along the railroad to the Russian Far East, among other cargoes. In those years, it had a very important advantage - it could be disassembled into 9 parts, after which it could be easily transported by ordinary railway wagons.
The Russian sailors also thought about the possible use of submarines by the enemy. Thus, Admiral S. O. Makarov, who was one of the initiators of the use of torpedo weapons, had an excellent idea of the degree of the underwater threat to warships. Already on February 28, 1904, by order, he demanded on each warship to draw silhouettes of submarines in the surface, positional position, and also under the periscope. In addition, special signalmen were assigned who were supposed to monitor the sea and identify submarines. The ships were charged with the duty to fire on the detected submarines, and destroyers and boats to go to ram submarines.
By the end of the summer of 1905, 13 submarines were assembled in Vladivostok, but the quality of these submarines did not meet the conditions of the Far Eastern theater of military operations, and their common drawback was their short cruising range. Hastily built and sent to the Far East with poorly trained or completely untrained teams, they were used extremely poorly. The submarines were not united by a single leadership, and the bases necessary for them were absent. In addition to the poorly equipped base in Vladivostok itself, in other parts of the coast, there were no docks and points where submarines could replenish their supplies. A large number of defects and imperfections, as well as various technical problems, prevented the submariners from training their crews. At the same time, the personnel spent a lot of their time on repairs and production work. All this, coupled with the lack of organization of the combat use of submarines, reduced their participation in the Russo-Japanese War to a minimum, but a great future awaited the emerging submarine fleet.
